Has it really been since Easter since I’ve posted?
Today is the summer solstice marking the first day of summer. Around here the air is more humid and warm. It’s not like this very long so the next few months are enjoyable compared to the very cold of winter. We soak up as much of the warmth as we can.
The last week was supposed to be stormy and wet. It turned out not to rain much at all. I worked to get all the grass cut so I didn’t have to worry about soggy ground. I have a lot of grass to cut each week so getting that done when I can is important. Turns out I had plenty of time and got to take the week off anyway.
It does get stormy around here. Although this was the week before it was supposed to get crazy. This storm brought crazy rain and wind. It was also the last time it really rained around here.
Since the weather is nice I hope to get out on my motorcycle some. It should be a good weekend to ride.
Normally this time of year, in particular today, I would be preparing for the Radio Field Day. This is the first year in, I think it’s been …, 10 years since I have not been involved in a very big way. It feels really weird that I would not be involved to the extent that I have been in the past.
Not only am I not involved but the club I belong to called the entire event off for 2019. It’s a weird time of inflection for our small club. Feels a little splintered. Probably a growth thing. It’s just weird to go from full throttle to a complete stop in the span of a year.
Back to the fun stuff.
My Ducati Multistrada 1200S at one of my favorite locations near home.The riding around my home is some of the best in the USA.Quiet time in the forrest.
My motorcycle takes me to cool places. Places I would never go in my car; down roads that are worth driving but much too far out of the way when I’m trying to get from point A to point B. It’s also a time I don’t have to think about anything else other than enjoying my environment and making observations.
Work has been busy which is most of the reason I have not been able to focus on my blog, photography, etc. Hopefully that changes soon.
The solstice is a time marker for me. A half way point in the year. A time to look forward and maximize the summer months to get things done in preparation for winter when things get cold again. Maybe go fishing, camping and otherwise chilling out. Its typically a quieter time around here.
This year’s “Field Day” was held Friday through Sunday, June 22, 23 and 24, 2018. The planning for the event was started in 2017 and continued right up to the days before.
We moved the event from where we’ve been having it in years past to Franklin Park, Purcellville, Virginia. This is a very public location inside the park grounds where anyone from anywhere could come and join us for the event.
… if it weren’t for the rain. Honestly, I don’t know when it started and when it stopped or even how much we got but it was a lot of rain. We set up the towers on Friday in torrential downpours which continued through the days. It did manage to clear up some on Saturday but it rained every day this year.
And when we were cleaning up a small storm came through with wind and more rain! Here’s what that looked like on radar:
Thunderstorm. Field Day 2018.
Man, did it rain. I sought refuge in my van but others didn’t make it out of the path in time. Some of the tents had to be held down manually and some did not make it from what I understand which exposed a lot of gear to the elements. Last report is that all electronic gear made it out OK with some drying effort.
Speaking of van. I don’t know how I was able to get all this gear from my home to the park and back but managed to do just that. It took a lot of help from others.
Van full of gear. Field Day 2018
The preliminary report has been published and from that information it looks like we did a fine job. It wasn’t a year where we blew out the numbers but we all did a good job making as many contacts as possible. That is what it is really all about.
One thing I set out to do this year was to learn more about satellite operations. Steve, KS1G was kind enough to walk me through some of what he was doing there. I took this short time lapse of his antennae at work:
When things are moving that fast you have to deal with all kinds of physics (like Doppler effect). It’s a little like patting your head and rubbing your belly while saying your ABCs backwards. I still have a lot to learn.
I didn’t take that many photos and the photos I did take I did so with my mobile phone. So the pictures are what they are. Being sleep deprived most of the weekend I don’t remember much of the detail I just remember that I needed to take some photos every once in a while. So this is what I got. For those photos go here.
If you want to know more about Field Day for our club or our club in general go here.
All the gear is back in it’s place, my station is back to normal at home. Another Field Day is behind me. Next up for the club, a 100+ mile bike ride. Stay tuned.
It seems like I just posted a blog on a snow storm!
The last couple of days has been preparing for another n’easter to come in to the mid-atlantic area as two low pressure systems collide near my home. With the crazy weather brings some interesting photo opportunities; especially for black and white high contrast photography which I enjoy so much.
Doukénie Winery
The Doukénie’s are nice people. I got to know the owners of this winery with my previous work. I’ve since lost track of them but drive by their place all the time as it’s on a road less traveled.
Random corn farm
This corn field is on my regular running/walking route. I give them shit because they use harsh chemical to treat their land. You can’t see any of that under the blanket of snow today.
Fence line of trees in the snow.
Drone photography has really changed the way I look at the earth. The first time I saw my first photograph from the drone I knew it was going to be something that would take the world by storm.
Back then I had the DJI Phantom 1 which did not have a camera mounted to it. Instead, I mounted a then unknown camera to the bottom of the drone … my GoPro (the original).
I remember being in my living room seeing the picture for the first time and saying something like, “Oh My!” which got my entire family’s attention. They wanted to know what I was looking at. It was something like you see here.
Producing the photograph is skill. The equipment is pure science.
The lonely tree
My “new” drone is the DJI 2. Even the DJI 2 didn’t have a camera so I bought a third party gimbal, wired it into the GPS of the DJI as well as into an OSD module.
The OSD, short for On Screen Display, superimposes all of the flight data into the video transmitter which I also procured and wired into the drone. All of this runs on 5 volts of dc power that I get from the drone itself.
Then I put my “new” GoPro 4 in the gimbal and tie that into the entire system.
When I fly the drone I have my FPV, or First Person View, goggles on my eyes and it is as if I am hanging from the bottom of the drone. It is literally like flying an airplane. I have the exact same instrumentation as an aircraft all displayed in front of me.
I control the drone with 2.4ghz DSS. The video downlink is 5ghz analog. It’s worth noting that the use of 5ghz downlink video is not something normally approved without a license. But I do possess the FCC license to do this.
The “wet land” experiment
This camera system that I created is not as fancy as the stuff you can buy today. Since that stuff wasn’t available when I built this I did what I could. It takes a photograph every 5 seconds as well as shooting 1080p 30fps video at the same time. So I get a little of both vs one or the other. But I do have to stay on my target for 5-20 seconds to get the photo I want. That is if I want it in high resolution and not from the video grab.
The video is not the latest 4k with all the latest technology. But for what I am doing with it I don’t need that either. For me and this system anyway, that is just a camera change. Not a drone system change. I just haven’t gotten around to swapping out the camera mainly because I don’t prefer GoPro cameras any longer as they are too expensive compared to all the other technology out there that can do just as well for 25% of the cost.
This is me behind my “camera” this afternoon
I’ve thought about buying a new drone over the past several years and, so far, I haven’t seen anything I’d prefer. There are smaller ones that fit in your pocket but don’t take better video or photos.
I think the next drone I have will be much more sophisticated in the use of aerodynamics. Like quieter props. These are not quiet machines. But they take awesome photos!
I have been collecting images for a few days now. As I went outside with my camera yesterday evening the following photos came in close succession before the sun went down.
The evenings here are alive with wildlife of all kinds. I’ve been trying to get a photo of the fox that has decided to come live with us but so far have been unsuccessful. It’s been very curious of me and Mongrel. Unlike most of them that just run away this one stays and observes us.
It gets so cold here with the blowing wind that I can only take a few photos before I have to put my hands back in my pocket where I have hand warmers running full blast.
Red shouldered hawk looking for the unsuspecting from above.
As you can see from the photo above amateur radio is assisting the local wildlife. The hawk is atop one of my telephone poles with my 80-meter antenna just below.
I took several pictures of geese flying around. Every evening they seem to be looking for a place to spend the night near some body of water. You’d think they would all be sort of going in the same direction but they are going in all directions and at all altitudes but in groups about this size, all of them in the V formation. I liked the contrast of them against the sky.
Navigating a darkening sky
Interesting contrast of a single goose trying to catch up with it’s flock and the jetliner going in the opposite direction.
Progress – Or is it?
Mongrel and I still go out on our walks but it’s been so, so cold that we haven’t been goofing around like we normally do. The first few minutes we are out, as indicated here with Mongrel on the stump, are so uncomfortable I’m surprised we don’t just run back inside.
It’s so cold!
On top of it being bitter cold the winds are blowing 15+ miles an hour. I don’t know what the wind chill is and I’ll keep this G rated in trying to describe it. But it is crazy cold.
Walking on (frozen) water.
The pond (above) is frozen solid. When we were out there exploring it made a popping sound that was so loud that it sounded like a gun going off right next to us. We both jumped!
Mongrel at the pond rock. Normally we hang out here for a 20-30 minutes.
Mongrel on one of our walks today. All boy.
This morning when I woke up and looked outside the frost was so think that I didn’t think I had seen it like that before. It was definitely a “hard” frost. It had the appearance of snow in the sunshine. The weather last night was uber-clear with a very light wind.
When you can’t find Mongrel … look up.
But we did manage to get in a tree climb in spite of the weather. For whatever reason Mongrel loves the game of “cat and mouse”. We play this game both inside and out, typically in the evenings. He will run and hide and I’ll have to go find him. Then I go and hide and he’ll find me. Often when I am looking for him (unsuccessfully) I’ll get ambushed from behind. I’ve never had a cat that plays like this one. Normally I’m tacitly ignored.
2017 may be the year we have a white Christmas. It’s been bitter cold with highs in the 20’s lately. The sun goes down a little after 4pm so the nights are also much longer.
Today is about finishing up work so I can help Gloria get ready for her Christmas party here as well as the party we will have tomorrow night. We’ve been working in our spare time to get the house ready for all of the folks that will be here during the holidays.
I haven’t been home much but when I am I try to fly my RC planes and such when the wind dies down in the evenings. It’s absolutely freezing cold when you are out in the open with gloveless hands trying to control one of these things. I don’t have the best circulation in my fingers so I seem to get colder faster than I used to. But I fly anyway. If you look closely in the video (towards the end) you’ll see me flying a couple of my planes.
When I was up in NYC this week I bought an older typewriter. It’s a 1965 model Smith Corona with 10 point pica font. I learned to type on a machine similar to this. It’s been fun getting to learn how to use it again.
1965 Smith Corona
It’s totally old school and fun to do again.
Yesterday we went to the radio observatory at Green Bank. Back in the summer I went through the process to get a clearance to go “behind the scenes” to see how things are run, talk to scientists and other technical people at the facility.
There is a 10 mile radio exclusion zone where there are no cell towers or the like anywhere near the facility. It’s nice at times to no get any notifications at all from anyone. If that is what you would like definitely go here. Your cell phone will stop working as you approach from the mountains and will stop working the entire time you are there. It’s kinda nice.
Green bank observatory GBT scope (100 meters)
But they also don’t let you use digital cameras there so you can’t get close up shots of the scope unless you have a film camera. I don’t have those anymore. Luckily there are a ton of pictures available out on the Internet of the facility.
It’s largest scope is the “GBT”, or “Green Bank Telescope”. It’s ~100 meters in size and is essentially the size of a football field suspended in the air. It’s enormous. And it rotates 360º as well as tilts it’s elevation with precision only found at this location. There is not a larger scope of this type anywhere else on this planet. If you are near here it’s worth a drive to go see what’s going on there.
I haven’t taken too many photos lately so not much more to post here. I hope you all have a great week and upcoming holiday.
I haven’t posted in a while. No excuse except that I’ve been traveling a ton. First a motorcycle trip with my dad and brother and then travel for a week for my work. I’m going to try to fit a lot of that in to a post soon. I don’t have anything, I don’t think, from my work travel but do have some from my motorcycle trip that I can share.
But before that, I got news this morning that my radio club, Loudoun Amateur Radio Group, came in first in class for ARRL Field Day 2017 this year. We had 5 operating positions running simultaneously which put us in class 5A. The “A” means we did not use commercial power and kept our transmitters under 100 watts for the 24 hour event.
2017 Field Day results. We came in 1st in our 5A class in the nation.
On top of those results we were also:
– #2 in Virginia behind a very large 12A team in Woodbridge
– #13 in the nation overall.
The last few years have been building years as we recover from the loss of many of our core members. But it looks like we are getting back on track. We start planning for 2018 here soon.
I was gonna make this post longer but for the sake of completing this and my day simultaneously … here you go.
This weekend was about goofing off. Goofing off as much as possible. It all started like this:
… sunrise September 17, 2017
Officially I had to do some volunteer work for my radio club but that was over before 10am Saturday which left the rest of the day to do something I’ve had in my calendar for a while now: The Flying Circus.
We didn’t stay long but we made a day of getting there and back like we tend to do now and again. Typical trip down I-81 where you have to be crazy to be with crazy. But it was OK with both of us in the car together to stay distracted. Although I think my driving drives Gloria crazy. She has to listen to me postulate about statistics of queuing and crowding; the mathematical advantage of being in a small car in a big car world. 210 horse power helps but not as much as being small.
The venue for the RC event is atop a hill south of Covington, VA where people are flying all kinds of different aircraft from fixed wing to drones and even some cars and the like. But it’s mostly about flying something. It’s put on by Jeremiah at Stone Blue Airlines. Jeremiah owns the place there in Lynchburg two hours away from Covington. He’s helped me outfit some of my RC gear here that I fly. It’s cool that he’s made a living out of his passion. It’s really hard to tell when he is working and when he is playing. Which is I think the point to life.
After looking through my FPV goggles at other people flying we took back off for home in hopes of getting back at a decent hour. We lumbered along the back way home up SR220 through some really pretty West Virginia and Virginia back roads. After a dinner at the Fireside Cafe it was slabbing it back home as fast as we could once the sun went down and both of us grew tired.
Gloria had a big morning on Sunday and presentation in the afternoon so we needed to get her back and rested. She had a good, productive presentation on how to make Kombucha. She makes really good Kombucha!
Not me. I took the day (Sunday) mostly off. Besides a 5 mile run at sundown I really didn’t do much but goof off with electronics, some photography, RC flying of various types, radio. Some people have said that my goofing off looks a lot like work. I resemble those remarks.
Oh, radio. I chatted with a “DXpedition” station from the Czech Republic operating in Mauritania using call sign 5T5OK. I was parked on a 14 mhz frequency when I noticed the activity on the spectrum scope. Turns out these guys were testing their station and I was able to snag them in a “pile up” on the first call once I figured out how they were set up on the split frequency. We really didn’t chat long and they went on to making more contacts. It’s about 4,200 miles from here to there. I’m always amazed that I can just “key up” and talk to a totally different country on the planet. Makes the world seem really small. I was on and off the radios all day today which was particularly fun.
I’m working on an adjustable square wave generator circuit with a 555 timer chip. I’m not terribly good with electronics so this is half learning and half doing. I want to create a string of LEDs that use a transistor to switch between on and off at a rate that I can control with the timer chip. The circuit is gonna look something like this:
555 timer circuit
I got my bench power supply back from the shop so I can start building stuff again. Or breaking stuff, depending on how badly I mis-calculate things like voltage, current and the like. My method is less “Ohms Law” and more “Poke-n-Prod” until the blue smoke comes out. When I see blue smoke it’s generally back to the drawing board. It’s a good way to learn but leads to a lot of dead parts.
I’m sure I could buy the circuit from China for a buck but what’s the fun in that? I have this idea on making an LED string look like it’s pumping electricity like water through a tube. I want to vary the alternating lights at a rate and amplitude I can control. Yea, boring.
Mongrel and I got to walk together some today. When we weren’t moving he was chasing his tail. I can’t tell if he is goofing off like cats can do or if he’s frustrated that he can’t control it. One thing’s for sure is that he is very transparent because of that tail which exposes his current mood. The little biting flies were bugging the crap out of us both too.
We were also still a lot today. It’s interesting to watch Mongrel. He generally sits facing opposite of me. If I were to lay down he sits on top of me. Must be some weird instinct thing going on there. Seems to watch out after me when we are together. Anything out of the ordinary while he is on watch will render a “growl”. Could be a dog ½ mile away or a person riding a horse. He just lets me know it’s out there.
Watching everything that is moving.
When all that is done and we are back in the quiet, cool of the house where his guard comes down he starts to slow down after some dinner. Quietly protesting that he doesn’t want to be inside he climbs in his box next to my desk. He starts off looking at me. Then falls asleep.
“In the safety of my box”
Soon he is on his back with his feet in the air. This cat can sleep like none other I’ve ever met. And will sleep like that all night long.
I hope you’ve had a day that was fun like ours. And that you are back in your safe place where ever that may be.
I’m done goofing off. Work tomorrow. Headed to my box.
